In 2012, Alan Davies returned to the stand-up arena with a huge national tour of the show, Life Is Pain. After a hiatus of 12 years, to begin with he was understandably nervous.

But it turned out he needn’t have worried. Alan’s return to stand-up was an unalloyed triumph. Looking back on that moment now, Alan smiles: “Going back on stage really felt like coming home.”

It is my pleasure to report that Alan remains hilarious. As we chat over coffee in a North London café in the run-up to the tour, he has me in stitches, too.

Alan is now going back on the road with an entirely new show entitled Little Victories. It can be summed up by all those adjectives beginning with C: coruscating, compelling and completely comic.

As a stand-up, Alan is an absolute natural. He is totally at ease on stage; he generates a tremendous warmth that draws audiences in. It is a joy to witness someone so obviously in his element.

The tour two years ago got Alan’s comic juices flowing again. Now he just can’t wait to start performing live once more. What distinguishes his shows is the wonderful relationship he enjoys with his audience.

The comedian, who is happily married with two small children, reveals: “From the outset, any gig is all about establishing a rapport with the audience. It has to go beyond your material – otherwise, you’re just a monologist. You go on stage empty-handed (like a karate expert) and have to find the audience.

“So you might start by talking to them about their town and towns nearby. Then get everyone to agree on what is the most rubbish village in the area. That’s one way of getting people to offer things up. It’s really important to have that interaction. Although it often appears as if you’re not doing anything, the opening 10 minutes is a vital part of the show. If you get that right, it sets the evening up perfectly.”

Alan is very grateful for the immense affection in which his loyal audience holds him. “They’ve made an effort to come out, they’ve booked the babysitter. It’s important never to forget that they have come specifically to see you.

“Once you get that in your head, you have a huge sense of gratitude towards the audience. That transmits to them. I’m saying to them, ‘You’ve done your bit by buying the tickets, and you’re free to leave at any time. But now I’ll do my bit by trying to entertain you’. Because they’ve especially come to see you, you get this terrific feeling of warmth from them. I love that.”

The genuine bond between Alan and his audience frequently spills over into good-natured mickey taking. He laughs that, “Fans often come up to me and say, ‘I saw you performing in Bournemouth in 1999. Have you met my grandchild?’

"I’ve started asking audience members when they were born, but that’s not always a good idea. I’m 47 years old now, so when they say, ‘1998’, I feign physical pain. But I have to admit I’m not always feigning – sometimes it causes actual physical pain.”

Alan goes on to explain where the neat title of his new show originates. “It comes from a routine about me trying to get my dad to eat blackcurrant jam. He has a limited palate. He also thinks that Indian food would make him ill. It would drive us mad as children – it’s almost pathological.

“He has just decided that he doesn’t like certain things. We had plenty of jam at home – strawberry, raspberry, apricot – it was jam a-go-go. But he would refuse to eat jam made of blackcurrant, the finest of all the currants. So we set him a trap… That’s one of the routines in the show. It’s a classic Little Victory.”

Another of the major themes of the show is how to be a good parent. Alan, who has also enjoyed a highly successful acting career on series such as Bob and Rose and Jonathan Creek, back on BBC1 this spring, said: “It’s on me to keep my children happy. They’re full of fun and laughter and have really nice days. I can’t bear to think of them being anxious.”

But, Alan adds, there is a danger that we glorify our children too much. “These days children are worshipped. Look at those parents who send pictures of their children as Christmas cards. We were house-hunting recently, and we saw a house that must have contained 200 framed photos of the owners’ children. Really? Those frames cost a bit, too.”

So as you can see, Alan is a comedian at the very top of his game. What keeps him so vibrant and so fresh as a stand-up is that he has never fallen into complacency.

The comic, who has been a regular panellist for the past 11 years on BBC2’s wonderfully inventive panel show, QI, observes: “You must never sit on your laurels. I remember a TV drama exec once coming on set and saying, ‘I’ve just seen the rushes and I smell BAFTAs’. I thought, ‘No, what you’ve smelt is the dog poo you’ve just trodden in. You don’t know what you’re talking about’.

“Good comedians never come off the stage punching the air and shouting, ‘I rule, baby!’ They say, ‘That was OK’. Recently I met the magician David Copperfield who does 600 shows a year. He told me, ‘I’m never satisfied with my performance. I always think I could have done it better.’

The marvellous news is, Alan shows no sign of wanting to take another break from stand-up. Now he’s got the taste for it again, he doesn’t want to stop. “I love stand-up,” beams the comedian, who has released two successful stand-up DVDs, Urban Trauma and Life Is Pain. “And I really like touring – I get a big kick out of it. I don’t find it arduous at all. It’s that or a 17-hour day looking after toddlers, which is much more difficult. Stand-up is a doddle comparatively. You go around the country making people laugh. It’s a really nice thing to do.

“I was talking to Rich Hall recently. He’s 58 and still enjoys touring. I remember once going to see Bill Cosby at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He was in his 60s. He did an amazing two and a half hour show and received a standing ovation. Absolutely inspiring. Let’s see where I am in 20 years’ time, but I know I’ve still got a long way to go.”

Alan closes by reflecting on how lucky he feels. “Having been away from stand-up for so long, I initially returned to it rather unwillingly. But now I count my blessings, which is something you don’t always do when you’re younger. I can’t do eight nights at the 02 or sell a million DVDs. But I’m still in a very privileged position where a lot of comedians would love to be. I went to Sweden in 2012 with the QI producer John Lloyd to watch a recording of their version of QI. They had also asked me to do a stand-up show. I said, ‘Really? Will they get it?’ But sure enough, the Swedish audience understood every single word and were loudly enthusiastic. Afterwards John said to me ‘Every night people laugh and clap and leave happy. It’s not a bad job, is it?’ I said ‘It's a great job’.”